This report examines the causes and contributors to medical debt, medical bankruptcy, and other difficulties with medical bills among people with insurance. Through in-depth interviews of nearly two-dozen people and quantitative analysis of national survey data, the authors of this report find that in-network and out-of-net-work cost sharing primarily contribute to medical debt among the insured.

This brief provides an overview of the health and mental health needs of girls and boys in the juvenile justice system and the role of Medicaid and CHIP in addressing those needs. It focuses on the circumstances of youth who are placed in juvenile justice residential facilities, the discontinuity of Medicaid coverage for those youth, and the options for improving coverage, continuity of care and access to needed services post-discharge, including new opportunities provided by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

More than four years after the Affordable Care Act’s enactment and more than a month after the close of open enrollment, six in 10 Americans say the health reform law has not had an impact on them or their families, Kaiser’s May Tracking Poll finds. Among those who say it has, Republicans are much more likely to say their families have been hurt by the law than helped, while Democrats are more likely to say their families have been helped than hurt.

Rural populations face disparities compared to metropolitan populations in health care. While rural individuals were not more likely to be uninsured than metropolitan counterparts pre-Affordable Care Act, they were poorer and less likely to have private insurance. With coverage changes in the ACA involving an expansion of Medicaid for poor and near-poor populations, decisions by states with large rural populations may cause rural residents to have disparate access to coverage, which may exacerbate cost and access barriers to health care.

This early look at the growth in the individual or nongroup market during the first three months of 2014 uses first quarter enrollment data submitted by insurance companies to state regulators to estimate the size of the market at the end of March. It includes both on and off exchange enrollment and is net of any people leaving the market (whether through plan cancellations or general churn in the market). It does not include the surge of enrollment that occurred toward the end of the open enrollment period as those enrollees most likely began their coverage in April or May.

Democrats More Likely to Say They Have Been Helped By the Law, Republicans More Likely to Say They Have Been Hurt Republican Voters Want ACA Debate to Continue, Democrats Would Rather Hear Candidates Talk About Issues Like Jobs, Independents Are More Split More than four years after the Affordable Care…

A new Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of health insurer reports to state regulators provides a first glimpse of enrollment in the individual, or non-group, insurance market under the Affordable Care Act. These initial filings reflect enrollment both through the new state insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act as…